Sunday, June 25, 2017

The killerest of all killers, John Wick (Keanu Reeves) murders a whole bunch
of Russian gangster led by Peter Stormare using the same crappy Russian accent
(note to producers: people in Sweden have a language of their own you might know
as Swedish; it’s not Russian, perhaps on account of Sweden not being Russia) he
puts on in American Gods because they stole Wick’s car and the picture
of his dead wife in it.

Santino D’Antonio (Riccardo Scamarcio), apparently the guy in the giant crime
conspiracy that seems to control everything in these movies who allowed Wick to
retire from the killing biz with said wife, sees this as a signal that Wick has
come out of retirement. Seeing as Wick has a ritual debt to him these murder
clowns call a Marker, Santino presses our “hero” to murder the gangster’s sister
(Claudia Gerini) for him because she has inherited the family seat at the high
table of the giant criminal conspiracy he’d rather have for himself.

Wick declines, so Santino blows up his house (and apparently all photos of
his wife, because Wick seems not to know about the digital world). Afterwards,
Wick changes his mind, pretty obviously planning to kill the sister and pay his
debt and then give Santino his mind (in form of a bullet or a hundred) about
blowing up his house and his photos. I probably don’t have to explain the rest
of what happens in the film.

I love big dumb action movies as much as the next guy (the cheap ones
probably much more than the next guy) but I didn’t really warm to the first
John Wick. Mostly, if I remember right, I found the film’s all-out
action attack rather exhausting with too many moments of the film showing off
instead of letting the action flow naturally. I’m also pretty sure that film’s
idea of what’s cool and mine are very different ones. So it comes as a pleasant
surprise to me that I rather liked the second film in the series, despite it
being directed by the same guy in Chad Stahelski and written by Derek Kolstad
again.

Well, I thought the prologue with Wick murdering the Russians was just as
annoying as the first John Wick, but afterwards, I very quickly found
myself warming to a film that clearly has fun adding somewhat bizarre flourishes
to the gangster secret conspiracy bits of the first movie. It’s obviously all
very comic book-y, but in a way that works well as a backdrop for a film whose
hero is deadly with a pencil (not to speak of guns) and that features exalted
characters like Laurence Fishburne’s Bowery King, a variation on the old beggar
king concept, or scenes like a shoot-out in an art exhibition/cabinet of
mirrors.

Unlike in the first film, this John Wick doesn’t seem to feel the
need to try so hard to demonstrate how cool and loud and so on it is, so there’s
even time for several ten minute blocks where nobody gets shot (or stabbed, or
exploded – you get the drift) which the film uses for some fun additions to its
over the top world. The characterisation and dialogue is still over the top too,
of course, but that fits the context here well, too. The action itself I like
much better this time around. Things haven’t become any less spectacular and
physically dubious, but Stahelski’s direction seems much more clear and focused,
without ever losing a sense of excitement and unironic silliness. The videogame
influences on the action are much less shoved into the viewer’s face, too. As a
matter of fact, Chapter 2 suggests that you can indeed use elements of
third person shooters in an action movie in interesting ways.

So what’s not to like? It’s fun, it’s violent, it’s over the top without
being annoying and even Keanu seems to be awake most of the time.